*SOUTH SUDAN Cracks widen in peace deal / Africa Confidential Vol. 57 nº 14* News of government attacks in Wau comes amid international warnings that the peace deal is unravelling
As fresh fighting rages in Bahr el Ghazal, United States' officials are discussing sanctions on the country's two main leaders – President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Vice-President Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon – for failing to implement the peace agreement they signed last August. Botswana's former President, Festus Mogae, who heads the African Union's Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, began his 23 June statement with the words, 'It is with a heavy heart that I address you today'. The next day, Wau, a major garrison in the north-west and capital of the former Bahr el Ghazal Region, was in turmoil as government forces and allied militias launched the latest strike in General Salva Kiir's counter-insurgency campaign. Many people died – the government says 40 but it's likely to be many more – and around 120,000 fled to the bush, to the United Nations' base and northwards to Darfur, Sudan. Soldiers and Dinka fighters went from house to house killing and looting on 24-25 June, sources in Wau told Africa Confidential. A local church leader said 13 people had been buried at the church, while a local woman said soldiers had entered her house on 25 June, asking whether the residents were Dinka. On finding that they were not, they started shooting, killing a woman and a three-year-old child. Over 12,000 civilians fled to the UN base in Wau and squatted within a poorly protected perimeter next to it. Another 10,000 are in the Catholic Cathedral, with thousands more in schools and other churches. More than 20,000 sought refuge outside town, said the International Committee of the Red Cross. Wau is now calm, we hear. Entire districts are empty. Salva Kiir's government and Riek Machar's Sudan People's Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO), which is technically now part of the government but in practice still very separate, offered starkly different accounts. The SPLM-IO military spokesman, Colonel William Gatjiath, told us that the army had 'chased police forces' from the town and that irregular forces from Warrap had taken part in the attacks. The events, he said, 'resembled the killing in Juba in December 2013', in which soldiers went from door to door killing members of the Nuer ethnic group. Meanwhile, Lul Ruai Koang, a Spokesman for the government forces, the Sudan People's Liberation Army, said two columns of men had approached Wau from the south in an attempt to infiltrate the town but were repelled by the SPLA in coordination with police. People were afraid for their lives, he said, but the SPLA was defending the town and was not the aggressor. Neither account of police involvement sounds accurate. Wau's police force is a mixture of Fertit, Dinka and Jur Chol and, we were told, the violence divided loyalties within the police, wildlife and prison services, the three non-army groups officially allowed to bear arms. Complicating a simple ethnic analysis, the SPLA in Wau is dominated by Nuer troops who remained loyal to the government throughout the recent civil war, while the main ethnic group in Wau is the Jur, who traditionally live in harmony with Dinka from adjoining areas, often intermarrying. One trigger for the violence may have been the 23 June SPLA shooting of a Jur police captain who was investigating the killing of civilians by SPLA in Wau's Haya Kosti area, we hear. Conflict had been brewing for months. Locals told us of anti-government forces assembling in the area and often coming into town. Meanwhile, brutality by government forces was such that Elias Waya Nyipuoch, then Governor of Wau State (one of the 28 new states), investigated the abuses and reported his findings to Juba (AC Vol 56 No 21, New maps, no peace). Elias was a popular SPLA commander of over 20 years standing. Nevertheless, the President removed him on 24 June, officially for inciting ethnic violence. Many blame his popular and persistent attempts to discipline SPLA forces. He was replaced by Andrea Mayar Achor, who was Speaker of the Western Bahr el Ghazal Assembly until he was ousted by a no-confidence vote last year. Amid disagreement over cantonment sites for rebel forces under the peace agreement, some see this as a similar government strategy to that in parts of Western and Central Equatoria. Government opponents in Wau are angry at what they see as an attempt by Salva's Dinka, the country's largest group, which dominates the SPLA, to sideline the small local tribes collectively known as Fertit, who traditionally live beside the Jur and Dinka, especially in Western Bahr el Ghazal, of which Wau was previously capital. Under the new plan, Wau is capital of Wau State and the Fertit capital, Raja (Raga), is capital of the new Lol State. There is 'resentment' of the SPLA, 'not a lot of trust and a feeling that they do not represent them', says a Dinka civil society leader in Wau. 'The Fertit feel they have been left out of national politics in South Sudan'. Yet Riek's proposed 21 states also leave Western Bahr el Ghazal split in two states, with the same borders as Salva's. During the 1983-2005 war, Khartoum recruited Fertit to fight the SPLA and in 1987-88, Fertit fighters treated Dinka with a brutality that has not been forgotten. 'Every time there is an issue it comes back to that,' said the civil society leader. In December 2012, the government tried to shift local government away from Wau, triggering protest at what was seen as a Dinka takeover. Several sources told AC they suspect the SPLA Chief of General Staff, Gen. Paul Malong Awan, of playing a guiding role in the government's counter-insurgency in the area. In April, Malong personally oversaw a military operation in the area that deployed attack helicopters, said a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on 24 May. Many blame him for the massacres of Nuer in Juba in December 2013 (AC Vol 55 No 9, Calling time on the killing). In December 2015, Malong appointed Major Gen. Attayib (or Thiap) Gatluak 'Taitai' to command SPLA Division 5, based at Grinti Barracks near Wau. As Division 4 commander, Taitai had led a brutal government offensive in Unity State in April-June 2015 when civilians were killed and raped. Grinti is also the headquarters of SPLA Sector 1, whose commander, Lieutenant Gen. Gabriel Jok Riak, has been under UN sanctions since July 2015 for breaking the cessation of hostilities agreement and obstructing international organisations from accessing affected areas. Locals report regular abuses by SPLA. 'Soldiers handle civilians with an iron hand,' says the Dinka community leader. Aid organisations registered at least 38,000 people as displaced by fighting and abuse in predominantly Fertit areas south-west of Wau even before the latest violence. In another echo of the Equatorias, tension around Wau was further inflamed between Fertit agriculturalists and Dinka herdsmen when armed cattle keepers from neighbouring states moved into south and west Wau County in January, destroying crops and occupying farming areas, said the International Organisation for Migration. Local militias have also spread, particularly south and west of Wau. In May and June, they attacked Bazia and Farajallah, and clashed repeatedly with SPLA into early 2016, said HRW. Raja was overrun by rebels on 15 June, forcing the Governor and cabinet to flee and holding the town for 24 hours before the SPLA pushed them out. 'In the last few months, the rebels have been coming closer to Wau town from their bases in Ngo Alima, Tadu Bringi and Ngo Kana', a church worker told us. 'They had no food and they were suffering, so they'd come and stay with civilians in the town for two or three days.' The rebels are a mixture of 'Fertit, some other ethnic groups, recruits from Northern Bahr el Ghazal, youths not happy with the government and bandits taking advantage of the situation', said the civil society leader. There is no evidence of official Fertit militia links to SPLM-IO though one of its officials told AC that it would welcome them. Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth, a prominent member of the hardline group which wraps Salva in its embrace, said the Wau rebels were from the Islamic Movement for the Liberation of Raja, led by Ali Tamim Ahmed Fartak. Some 700 militia had come from Sudan, Makuei said but civic leaders in Wau denied this. The rebels 'received arms and ammunition from Sudan and the Janjaweed' (Arab pro-Khartoum fighters from neighbouring Darfur) before the clashes in Raja on 15 June, said another Wau source. Truckloads of weapons also arrived, we hear. With 120,000 people displaced and no political remedy for the underlying causes of the conflict, locals are bracing themselves for more trouble. -- To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob View this message at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14oqs%3DctUeMxFjo-2%3DMwejgpJdR1OFdt1NHj_YwDZsxg1uA%40mail.gmail.com. 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